Heavy heart tonight.
I’ve always known the situation in Honduras was dangerous, but honestly it’s never really worried me. I’ve felt anxious before when out in the streets, in the mall, in stores…and I constantly feel on my guard there, even when in “safe” places. But the danger has always felt somehow distant. Even when I had my wallet stolen, I wasn’t disheartened. Even when we found ourselves on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, on a road where an average of four murders occur every day, I felt irrationally safe. But tonight the gravity of the situation in Honduras is hitting me like a ton of bricks and I no longer feel immune (if that’s even the right word for it—I don’t think it is).
A few days ago I got an e-mail from El Hogar informing me that the sister of the bishop who spoke at the graduations I went to in November was killed recently. Her head was crushed with a cinderblock. I assume it was a robbery, but I can’t be sure. The next day I heard about the prison fire in Comayagua. Something like 358 prisoners killed, the majority of whom weren’t even charged, let alone convicted, according to an article I read. Earlier today Murray told me that the executive director recently had his laptop stolen from his office on the El Hogar premises, presumably by a delivery person. And tonight, I received an e-mail that one of the boys at the El Hogar farm school, a 19 year old, was killed in Tegucigalpa. A man on a bus demanded his cell phone, but the boy had earbuds in and didn’t hear him. The man shot him in the chest and killed him instantly. The boy’s sister was with him. I was devastated when I read the e-mail. The kids at El Hogar must be hurting so much right now.
This is an awful lot for one week. I’m honestly afraid. For the first time, I’m hesitant to return. It seems like things are getting even worse. The Peace Corps removed all of their volunteers from Honduras because of safety concerns. I know several people, Americans, who deemed that move rash and unnecessary. Even if that’s the case, it strikes me as foreboding all the same.
I rode a bus last time, probably similar to the one that boy was riding. Waiting in line for the bus was how I got my wallet stolen. I guess I should consider myself lucky that my thief wasn’t violent. But the same thing could have happened to me.
I ache for the kids at El Hogar, for the families of the prisoners—especially the wrongfully imprisoned ones—and for the bishop and his family. I desperately wish, with all of my being, that Central America weren’t as dangerous as it is. That things were different. That crime and fear weren’t the backdrop for so many children growing up there. I feel almost frantically hopeless. Helpless. Frustrated.
Mostly just sad.
